Originally posted in Alliance Magazine. Read full story here
In the next in a series of interviews on collective giving, Andrew Milner talks to Christine Darcas about research of the field currently underway in Australia.
AM: Christine, can you tell me a little about who you are and what your relationship with collective giving is?
CD: I grew up in the US and moved to Australia nearly 25 years ago. Community involvement and fairness were core values in my family, so the idea of people coming together to improve the lives of others has always felt natural to me. That led me first into international aid work in Chad, before roles in project management and as a professional writer. Without realising it at the time, those experiences gave me front-line insight, business knowledge and communications skills, the combination of which made philanthropic engagement feel like an unexpectedly natural fit when I entered the Australian nonprofit sector in 2012. Soon after, a friend introduced me to collective giving through the Melbourne Women’s Foundation (MWF).
Over my 11 years volunteering for MWF — including serving as Executive Officer and, ultimately, inaugural Chair when it transitioned from a sub-fund to an independent charity — I saw how profoundly collective giving can transform people. I witnessed participants become more informed and deliberate donors, increasing not only their financial giving but also their volunteering. Seeing that transformation sparked my interest in learning how we can grow and accelerate Australia’s collective giving movement to strengthen the country’s broader giving culture. I’m thrilled to now be the consultant on Philanthropy Australia’s national collective giving research initiative and a member of that initiative’s steering committee.
AM: I want to come back to that in a moment, but just to widen out the scope, what is the history of collective generosity in Australia? What are the cultural and historical trends that it’s drawing on?
CD: Collective generosity has existed in Australia throughout its human history, starting with First Nations peoples and moving through the centuries to the development of organizations like benevolent societies, church and hospital auxiliaries and service clubs—and those are just the tip of the iceberg. Fundamentally, collective generosity is not new. Think of the age-old tradition of passing a hat to raise funds for a cause, then amplify that to whole communities across a state and beyond contributing resources, for example, to help Victoria rebuild after its devastating bush fires in 2009. All of this has been grounded in an existing ethos of practical neighbourliness, mutual aid and general goodwill.
The difference now is that collective giving is emerging as a more structured, deliberate effort to expand and accelerate generosity throughout the country. The growth of community foundations and collective giving models, particularly giving circles and live crowd funding, since around 2012 reflects that trend. They build on earlier traditions, but introduce greater intentionality and potential scale.
AM: What do you think is distinct about the Australian context for collective giving?
CD: It’s a big question, and one that really calls for comparative research across multiple countries before drawing firm distinctions. For now, the most meaningful point of comparison for our work is
the US because it has conducted comprehensive landscape analyses and because we have strong collegial relationships with networks there like Philanthropy Together and PhilanoUS.
With the US, we share the will to grow collective giving. What differs is the level of infrastructure surrounding it. The US has developed far more extensive networks, support systems and tools that make it easier for collective giving groups to form, strengthen and scale. Australia’s movement is growing, but we don’t yet have that same breadth of enabling structures. Understanding what it would take to build them is part of what makes this research so important.
AM: Going back to the research, what did that come out of? Was it from a need you identified?
CD: The first study on Australian collective giving took place in 2017, but a lot has happened since then. We were aware that collective giving had grown and the environment had become ripe to pursue it more aggressively, but we didn’t have a baseline understanding to determine how to go about it. We didn’t know, for example, how many groups were out there, how much they had raised, the variety of models that existed, what challenges they were encountering or what the opportunities were. So, to really understand that current landscape and identify pathways to nurture collective giving, we needed to conduct a new and extensive research study. Fortunately, Philanthropy Australia received major backing from Minderoo Foundation along with 5Point Foundation and Australian Communities Foundation to do so. We’re hoping to complete the study by end February 2026.
Speaking further about need, collective giving addresses an imperative to build Australia’s giving culture. In 2023, the Australian government set a goal to double philanthropic giving by 2030. Australians certainly give, there’s no question about that, but the statistics show there’s room for growth. For example, Australia’s giving represents 0.81% of its GDP, compared to 1.84% for New Zealand and 2.1% for the US. Approximately 53% of Australians earning AUD 1 million or more in annual income claim a tax deduction for giving and Australians leave 1% of their assets to charity, well below levels in the US and the UK.
As I said earlier, we know from research, including our current study, that people who engage in collective giving often donate and volunteer more to their community as a result. They also develop a stronger awareness of the not-for-profits working in the causes they care about, a better grasp of the issues and a more deliberate approach to their giving. Plus, they feel they’re genuinely making a difference and having fun doing it. They’re building friendships and networks, connecting.
So, if you’re keen to build Australia’s giving culture, understanding how to build collective giving is a pretty evident approach.
AM: Is there anything to say about the emerging findings? For instance, what’s the size of the sector? Are there groups all over Australia, and are there particular cause areas that they’re interested in?
CD: We’ve just closed our two major surveys and are about halfway through our interviews, so I can’t give away a lot more with certainty. In addition to what I’ve already discussed above, we’ve learned a strong proportion of collective giving groups here work nationally. After that, they tend to be more metropolitan-oriented. In terms of gender, the participants are predominantly women, 80-82%. The most popular model by far is giving circles, then live crowdfunding comes second.
The major reasons why people join are to increase the impact of their giving by pooling their resources with others, supporting the group’s cause areas, building relationships with people who share similar values and becoming more intentional and strategic in their giving. What we’re seeing so far as prominent cause areas are housing and homelessness, First Nations peoples, education, mental health/Crisis Intervention and services related to domestic of family violence.
AM: This is probably a hard question to answer, but are you getting a sense of momentum in the collective giving sector?
CD: Oh, yes, absolutely. The momentum is definitely building. One of the motivators for doing this research was that we knew that collective giving was growing, including amongst community foundations, which is another variation of collective giving. It doesn’t have the same kind of donor decision-making as the groups we’re focusing on, but they’re still pooling resources and distributing them to the community.
So, there is momentum, but we didn’t know enough about it to identify the challenges and the opportunities, and then from there, be able to create strategies and invest resources to help current and aspiring groups to not only start up, but thrive.
AM: Are you looking at some point towards an infrastructure body that will bring together collective giving entities in Australia, for instance, like a national association?
CD: We’ll have a stronger grasp on that possibility once we’ve reviewed the research. But it would seem to make sense to have some sort of national resource centre that groups can access for mentoring, operational workshops, governance templates, start-up kits, etc. in addition to opportunities to connect and share experiences. We’ll be able to speak with more certainty about that early next year.
AM: So, you’ll be looking to publicise the idea more widely through the report, so it becomes like a motor for the movement.
CD: Very much so. We hope it will help build awareness of collective giving nationwide and encourage people to start groups and others to join them. We also hope it will inform the development of resources to help current and aspiring groups develop and thrive. That stage is part of our purview as well. We’re determined to turn the study’s recommendations into action.
And there’s so much potential here. For example, we’ve heard stories of people who started in a giving circle and later became major donors, sparked by the empowering introduction to philanthropy through collective giving. And when you consider that in Australia, there’s a AUD 5.4 trillion intergenerational wealth transfer coming down the pike, the potential becomes even greater. Collective giving—through its accessibility, connection and learning—has the potential to inspire many of those recipients to embrace philanthropy if they haven’t already. And it’s fun. There’s real joy in it.
AM: It’s often said that the collective giving approach is democratizing philanthropy. It’s not just about creating relationships within the group, it’s also creating different relationships with beneficiaries. Are you seeing that from your research?
CD: You’re right that collective giving is democratizing philanthropy—its more financially accessible entry points open the door to people who might not otherwise see themselves as philanthropists, and many models give donors a direct say in where the funding goes.
When it comes to relationships with beneficiaries, we’re seeing signs that collective giving can shift traditional power dynamics in philanthropy. If you define beneficiaries as the non-profits receiving funding, we’ve observed partnerships that are more balanced and less like the classic donor–recipient dynamic. And if you define beneficiaries as the individuals or communities served, there is real potential for lived-experience voices to shape how resources are designed and directed.
AM: You mentioned earlier that the giving circle is the preferred model at the moment in Australia.
CD: I would say it’s preferred because it seems to be the best known here. But, as I mentioned, crowdfunding is a very strong model that exists here, too. The Funding Network is the perfect example of an organization that has raised millions since it started here. But one of the things we hope to do through the research, particularly in our comparative work with the US and potentially elsewhere, is to identify a wider range of models so we can build awareness of approaches that might better suit different people and communities.
I should stipulate here that we’re not trying to replicate exactly what’s happening in the US or anywhere else. Rather, we intend to learn from them and adapt those learnings to the Australian context.
AM: Is there a sort of template for collective giving, or on the other side, would there be potential legal restrictions on some forms?
CD: There aren’t templates, per se. Again, that’s the sort of potential resource we’ll explore, though they’d more likely be discrete, topic-specific tools that groups can adapt to their needs because there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all nature to collective giving. There’s room for lots of customization and innovation. That’s part of the beauty of it.
As for legal restrictions, that depends on the model and its level of sophistication. There are collective giving groups out there that are not legal entities. They’re informal, like a book group where people get together, put their money on the table, and decide who they’re going to give it to. The applicability of legal restrictions depends on where a group falls on the range from informal groups to those with various kinds of charitable status. It’s complicated, and detangling the legal requirements for different models will likely need to play a role in growing Australia’s collective giving movement. That said, Australia’s new Deductible Gift Recipient category for community foundations should make it easier for giving circles that use community foundations. It’s going to be a journey.
Cover photo by Trude Jonsson Stangel on Unsplash